THEGAYUK

Author: Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | The Normal Heart

    ★★★★★ | The Normal Heart
    Larry Kramer is perpetually angry. This prominent loud-mouthed writer and gay activist has been shouting out his highly personal take on some of life’s iniquities and inequalities for the past 40 years and has made himself famously unpopular.

    It was his exasperation with the apathy of the gay community when the AIDS scare first started that made him co-found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in his living room in 1981. And it was his unfettered bursts of outrage against an indifferent and immovable culture and a bureaucratic stonewall that got him unceremoniously forced out of the organisation just two years later.

    Retiring to Europe to lick his wounds, Kramer sat down and wrote an autobiographical piece of his whole experience of those past constantly changing years. It opened Off Broadway in 1985 when the AIDS Epidemic had really started to take a tight grip in New York (and many other major cities) and ‘The Normal Heart’ became the seminal play of the period. It would be another 6 years before Kushner’s ‘Angels of America’ would be seen.

    Now nearly some three decades later the play finally makes it to the silver screen after many false starts and broken promises, but along the way it has not lost a single iota of its potency with its powerful story that never fails to stun its audience into sheer silence.

    The movie opens on a typical care-free speedo-clad beach in Fire Island summer in the late 1970’s where sex is the first and second thing on the minds on this happy gay crowd. When one of their number suddenly collapses without warning on the sand no-one has the slightest idea that he is one of the early victims of what the New York Times will later describe as GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) i.e. the Gay Cancer.

    As the virus spreads writer Ned Weeks played by Mark Ruffalo (Kramer’s ‘stand in’) tracks down Dr Emma Brockner (Julia Roberts) who is the first physician in NY dealing solely with the epidemic and she simply cannot cope. She is overwhelmed with the increasing number of patients, with the indifference of the medical community who in denial, refuse to help or provide funds; and the apathy of the gay community who refuse to give up their newly gained hedonistic liberty to stop having sex just because this disabled doctor says it could kill them.

    Brockner recognizes a passionate true spirit in Weeks and eggs him to start trying to both persuade the gay community to change their practices and also organize an official support system.

    Even with the figures of gay men getting sick and dying escalating at an unprecedented pace Weeks is frustrated at the very little headway the newly formed GMHC is making. Finding himself as the unofficial spokesman, mainly due to the fact that he is not only the most articulate of the bunch, but his anger at a system that refuses to pitch in and help makes him a compelling anti-Establishment figure that the media are happy to cover.

    It may help them sell newspapers but it doesn’t achieve any of Week’s more lofty ambitions, and in fact only serves as the reason for the Board of GMHC to fight him tooth and nail and try and control his activities. Even with a Mayor, a President and a whole medical community that refuses to do anything to help stop all these men dying, the GMHC still wants to take a very cautious and overly polite approach so as not to upset either anyone in power or a gay community that do not want to curb their lifestyles.

    Whilst all this is going down 30-something-year-old Weeks finds love for the first time in his life in the shape of a younger New York Times Reporter Felix Turner (Matt Bomer). This unlikely seeming couple turn out to be a perfect match and their very passionate relationship is the one happy part of Week’s life even though it is sadly doomed when Turner falls ill and his young life is unseemly ended way before its prime like so many others of his generation.

    The movie ends soon after that (although the story in real life didn’t with Kramer going on to co-found ACT UP the AIDS activist organisation that unapologetically demanded help and support to help fight the plague and whose many successes included the releasing of much needed drugs and funds).

    Kramer’s anger may also have been one of the reasons that it took so long to get this on to our screens, but it was worth every minute of the wait. In Ryan Murphy, the openly gay creator of ‘Glee’ and ‘American Horror Story’, he found a filmmaker who not only put his own money where his mouth was by buying the Rights himself, but he proved to be a collaborator who created a masterpiece movie true to his vision.

    Murphy deserves credit for many things, not least the fact that he took the almost unheard of decision of casting many openly gay actors to play gay men. With not one mis-step in his selection which included the actor & director Joe Mantello as Mickey Marcus (fresh from his Tony nominated turn playing Ned Weeks in the recent Broadway revival); Jim Parsons repeating his role in the same production as Tommy Boatwright; Jonathan Groff, Taylor Kitsch, Alfred Molina, Frank De Julio, and the ultra handsome Matt Bomer as Tyler who quietly shed 40 lbs to play his dying character without any of the inflated brouhaha of a certain Oscar Winner who had trouble mentioning the word AIDS in public!

    Mark Ruffalo gets nominated as an honorary gay for his convincing portrayal of Ned Weeks who was equally passionate berating politicians as he was making love to his boyfriend. And last, but not least, Julia Roberts very competently played the part that Barbra Streisand had lusted after years, the physician who was sadly dabbed as Dr Death.

    With Murphy refusing to shy away from any of Kramer’s rhetoric or the scary visuals of the violent and cruel deaths these young men suffered, this is the story of how it really happened, warts and all. There are no flowery allegories or sightings of Angels as in the Kushner play but just sheer unadulterated screaming and angry rants at a world that we thought may actually kill us all

    If you were around at any of these times from the early 1980’s on, then this powerful heart-wrenching piece will make a lot of unpleasant memories flood back. It is shockingly disturbing and serves to remind one that the nightmares that we lived through were not imagined in the slightest and were very real indeed.

    If it hadn’t been for Larry Kramer’s loud mouth, it would been a whole lot worse. If on the other hand you are approaching this drama having been born after these events then I can only assume that this near apocalyptical scenario may even appear like an historical event that is nothing to do with you. Trust me it does. AIDS may longer be considered a gay plague, but as the closing credits of this movie remind us all too clearly, even now 6000 people are diagnosed with HIV every single day to increase the present world total of 35 million infected. It still affects as us.

    P.S. The last word goes to Murphy when he simply summed it up after this movie was Premiered in NY. with ‘You were right Larry’. I never thought otherwise.

    The Normal Heart airs on 1st June on Sky Atlantic

     

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  • FILM REVIEW | Mariachi Gringo

    ★★★★ | Mariachi Gringo

    When Edward was a young boy growing up in rural Kansas he dreamed of running away to join a band.

    However, he’s now about to have his 30th birthday and he’s still living at home with his parents, and still taking the mind-numbing drugs his paediatrician had prescribed, and he’s about to lose his dead end job.

    The one small joy in his life is occasionally going out to a small Mexican Restaurant in town which is owned by Alberto a mariachi player and his wife. Alberto takes a shine to Edward when he discovers a mutual love for music and he starts to mentor him with his guitar playing and teaching him how play mariachi style.

    Alberto loves telling stories of his hometown Guadalupe and how he longs to go back there and play once more in the Plaza de los Mariachis. When one day Alberta has a near fatal stroke it’s a wake-up call for Edward who finally realises that life is too short and he needs to follow his dream now before it’s too late.

    So he ups sticks and runs off to Mexico and to Alberto’s hometown but when he hears all the bands playing there he soon realises that he is a very inadequate musician. Luckily by chance, he meets Leila whose family runs a restaurant in the Square and she takes him under her wing, points him in the way of accommodation, gives him a part-time job working in the kitchen, and promises to find him the right people to help to turn him into a true mariachi.

    Leila is a live wire and a total opposite to quiet slow Edward and he soon mistakes all her kindnesses as an invitation to romance. As do we all thinking that we are about to see a boy meets girl and they all live happily every after story. Turns out this girl would prefer to meet another girl, but luckily by then Edward has his music to throw his pent up lust into, and for a white boy he turns out to be a pretty good musician after all.

    This rather charming story is the 2nd feature of director Tom Gustafson (his first was ’Were The World Mine) Has a great cast: Shawn, one half of Ashmore Canadian acting twins, played a very cute Edward, and beautiful Mexican actress Martha Higareda was wonderful as Leila; and Oscar nominee (for Babel) the indomitable Adriana Barraza played her mother. BUT undoubtedly the best thing about this whole movie was the incredible music. Totally uplifting and so hypnotic especially when it was sung so stunningly by Grammy award winner Lila Downs who I now know is a something of a Mariachi legend.

    If I have one niggle it would be that the film started out really slow and awkward with the acting really quite stiff even by stalwarts such as Kate Burton and Tom Wopat, but once we left Kansas it picked up and became an engaging piece. So maybe Dorothy was right after all!

    In Cinemas in the UK from today

  • FILM REVIEW | Fading Gigolo

    ★★★★ | Fading Gigolo

    Murray is about to close down his rare book store in New York that has been in his family for three generations. It will mean that he and his 50-something-year old assistant and life long friend Fiorovante will be unemployed and strapped for cash.

    Murray however tells his pal that his wealthy female dermatologist had mentioned that she and a girl friend of hers had always fantasized about having a menage a trois. Not that she expected Murray, somewhere in his 70’s, to do this but she asked if he knew of a suitable candidate, and so he had suggested Fiorovante for the job. Not that he was particularly handsome or even muscular, but as the ladies were looking for a ‘real man’ Murray thought that he would be the perfect candidate. That, and the fact the doctor had offered a fee of $1000.

    The reluctant Fioravante accepts the challenge as the other part time job he has in a florist shop barely keeps him in orchids. To his surprise he likes the trial run with the doctor, and so with Murray acting as his ‘pimp’, starts hooking up with other older women who are not getting any action from their husbands.

    Meanwhile Murray lives with a much younger black woman and acts as a surrogate step-dad for her four young kids. When one of them contracts lice at school, he drags the kid off to see a head lice expert in Willamsburg. She is the widow of an Hasidic Rabbi and the mother of five young children that she is bringing up on her own. Murray sensing her loneliness and the lack of any adult companionship, suggests to her that he knows a ‘therapist’ who could help. The initial encounters between her and Fiorovante are awkward to say the least, but for some weird reason this very odd and ill-matched pair start to fall in love.

    The Widow also has a fervent admirer in the shape of a neighborhood Hasidic cop who has been waiting for for two years for the right moment to make his move. Now as he notices her leaving the house regularly and going into the city, he follows her to find out what she is up too. Fearing the worse but really not knowing what exactly is going on he and his fellow cops abduct Murray and take him to an Orthodox Court to face charges that he is ruining the widow’s reputation in the hope that all will be revealed and/or she will be saved.

    It is one of the oddest plots for a comedy, which for reasons that I am still not totally clear about, actually works rather well. Even the far fetch concept of offering a young religious widow a roll in the hay was convincing, although the slapstick routine of the Courtroom was an uneasy fit in this otherwise gentle drama. The fact that writer/director/star John Turturro has his old chum Woody Allen playing Murray as Woody Allen is a major contributor to the success of the piece. Allen is perfect as the wisecracking opportunistic peddler who has no morals at all about making a quick buck especially when he doesn’t have to do much work for it at all. And Turturro with his sad soulful eyes and his gentle manner makes Fiorovanti the most perfect reluctant hooker.

    They are joined by Sharon Stone as the very sexy frustrated dermatologist, Sofia Vergara as her friend (and for once there is no trace of her ‘Modern Family’ character Gloria), Liev Schrieber is the sulky cop, and with a beautifully understated performance as the widow by Vanessa Paradis who is really not on our screens nearly enough.

    Turturro makes New York look so inviting and he greatly enhances the visuals with a beautifully scored soundtrack of vintage jazz, maybe a touch of Allen’s influence too.

    A sweet and funny movie.

    Fading Gigolo is released 23rd May

  • FILM REVIEW | Concussion

    This is the story of a mid-life crisis where a marriage between a lawyer and an ex-real estate house flipper turned housewife who live with their two kids in a comfortable affluent NY suburb starts to get stale. ★★★★

    The housewife busy with running the home, taking Pilate classes with her friends, and hanging out with the other soccer kids’ mums doing the daily school runs etc., is bored out of her head. The same head that gets hit very hard one day when her son accidentally manages to throw a ball at it causing some bloody damage.

    It results in not just concussion but some sort of epiphany that she needs to make some changes to her life.

    The edge that this story has over similar tales of marriage woes is that this couple are lesbians which doesn’t alter the reality of marital disharmony but it makes it take on a whole different resonance.

    Abby goes back to work and buys a Loft in the city to refurbish and flip throwing all her energy into the project. It’s a start, but she is still sexually frustrated as her wife Kate, a divorce lawyer, seems to prefer celibacy. So Abby hooks up with hooker, but the woman she picks from a newspaper ad turns out to be dishevelled drug user and the experience is far from happy, something she confides to Justin her contractor/friend who is working on the loft with her. Justin’s girlfriend just happens to run a call-girl service out of her college dorm and so she insures that Abby gets a very hot date for her next encounter.

    It whets her appetite for sex, but at $800 a pop this is more than she can afford on a regular basis so Justin suggests that maybe the answer would be for her to turn tricks herself. Evidently there is a need for a beautiful older woman… Abby is 42… especially to service young wealthy women looking for an experienced lesbian. It takes time to persuade Abby to decide and even then when she accepts she insists on doing it in her own terms i.e. meeting clients in a coffee shop first. And thus ‘Eleanor’, Abby’s new persona, is born.

    At the beginning most of the clients are indeed young but when Eleanor gets one who is even older and sexually more experienced, she really starts to relish her new role. And then to top it all one of her new clients turns out to be Sam, a married ‘straight’ woman friend from her own town who she has always quietly lusted after, the fantasy of her new life becomes very real indeed.

    Abby insists that ‘Eleanor’ only has a few clients a week so that she can maintain all her usual routines at home, and very conveniently now that the loft is finished she even has a place for her assignations. Her wife Kate is so wrapped up in her work and being the ‘other’ mother at home that she is completely unaware that Abby has created this other life just to get some sexual fulfillment, and even when the penny eventually drops, she really doesn’t want to accept when she sees.

    It’s an intriguing drama that is primarily convincingly real because of exceptional and sensitive performance by Robin Weigert as Abby/Eleanor. She insures that we empathise with her from the very beginning, and although it is essentially all about satisfying her needs there is something very laudable about Eleanor as she goes out of her way to insist that the other women get the fulfillment they are craving too.

    It is an impressive writing/directing debut from Stacie Passon, and it was very beautifully filmed so that the sex scenes were never explicit but extremely erotic. The plot started to waffle slightly towards the end as if it was unsure of how to resolve the drama, but that still doesn’t stop it from being an extremely watchable fine piece.

  • FILM REVIEW | My Last Round

    ★★★★ | My Last Round

    Soon after middle-aged Octavio begins his romance with his young lover Hugo life gets complicated for both of them.

    Octavio is told he must give up boxing because he has a medical condition that could cause a brain hemorrhage, and Hugo gets fired from his job as he got the boss’s daughter pregnant. Determined to put this all behind them they take off to Santiago, the nearest big city, to start a new life together.

    Octavio gets a gig cutting hair at a traditional barbers shop but as Hugo fails to find work he ends up at home all day feeling sorry for himself. It puts something of a strain on the men’s relationship as both of them feel unfulfilled and unhappy with their lot. It doesn’t improve when Octavio, missing the excitement of the ring, accepts another boxing match, whilst at the same time Hugo, now finally employed, starts to get entangled with his new boss’s daughter.

    It turns out that both men quickly regret the new choices that they have made as they were done for all the wrong reasons. In trying to retain their own heavily masculine identities and their independence they inevitably put at risk the one thing that in the end was the more important than all the others i.e. their relationship with each other.

    The fact that this story is about two poor working class Chilean men sets it apart from most gay themed movies and the sheer brutality that prize-fighter Octavio puts himself through in the ring, that is shown here in bloodied detail, is not something we expect to see in a movie which is about a very tender and loving relationship between two very different men. There is a finality to their story which writer/director Julio Jorquera Arriagada makes sure we are aware of with the very poignant opening scenes of a funeral, but he very wisely does not attempt to draw any conclusions. It is very much what is and that is both tough and sad.

    Well cast and well acted it’s a tragic love story beautifully told.

  • FILM REVIEW | Chef

    ★★★★ | Chef

    Writer/director/actor Jon Favreau is back to his indie movie roots with this sparkling new comedy that he has just completed for less then $10 mil. which evidently is considered pocket money by Hollywood standards these days.

    However the man who was relatively unknown when he had his breakthrough writing and starring in ‘Swingers’ back in 1996, can now count a lot of ‘A’ list stars amongst his friends and he has peppered them with some perfect cameo roles that make this new movie really so delightful.

    This is the story of Carl Casper, played by Favreau, who is the Executive Chef of a highly successful fancy restaurant in LA Although it is packed every night the food is safe and boring as the Chef once renowned for his innovative and creative style of cooking has lost heart. One day word gets out that the Country’s most important food critic & blogger is due to eat there that night and Carl is determined to cook something audacious and new just like the old days. He has however not taken into consideration that the conservative Restaurant owner won’t hear of any such plan, and after a showdown with him in the kitchen, Carl backs down and serves the critic food from his tired old regular menu.

    The very articulate review he writes is nothing less than damning but if this is not bad enough, news of it spreads like wildfire on Twitter. It takes Carl’s 10 year old tech-savvy son Percy to explain to his father how this, and other social media work, and as beginner Carl tries to grasp the fundamentals of it all he inadvertently sends the critic a rather nasty note that he thought was going as a private message. It was in fact very public and is the start of a vitriolic exchange of tweets between the two men that very quickly attracts thousands of followers.

    It leads to an exasperated Carl publicly taunting the critic to come back and try a new menu, and with all the public attention this spat is getting, the restaurant phone is ringing off the hook and they are having to turn away reservations every minute of the day. Come the ‘re-match’ and the owner forbids Carl to cook the proposed new menu, so he angrily just storms out just minutes before the critic walks in. Faced with having to eat the same food he has already decried, the critic starts to complain via twitter whilst he is still in the restaurant, resulting in an angry Carl hot footing it back and having a screaming fit which seemingly every single diner there catches on their cellphones and puts up on YouTube.

    Carl’s tantrum goes viral. He may no longer be a star chef but on the Internet he is very big news. Unable to get work and rapidly running out of money he reluctantly accepts an invitation by his ex-wife to travel with her and their son back home to Miami to visit the boy’s Cuban grandfather. She also connives for Carl to meet up with his predecessor i.e. her first husband Marvin a real sharp wheeler-dealer who provides the bemused Carl with an old Food Truck.

    The Truck is in a real dilapidated state but after a touch of fairy dust and a hell of a lot of elbow grease, the van is soon shiny just like new. Thanks mainly to the fact his son Percy is there to help, and also his ex-assistant chef Martin, who hearing about the truck, packs in his job in LA and hops on a plane and turns up unannounced in Miami volunteering his services.

    They start a dry run making and selling traditional cubano sandwiches on South Beach, before starting a road-trip adventure driving the truck across the country back home to California. It gives Carl a chance to get back to his roots and cook authentic food but more importantly an opportunity to bond with his son Percy for the first time since he left home. Percy’s role is not just as prep chef but also the social media expert of the group and his regular twitter feeds ensure that there are large crowds awaiting them in Austin Texas, New Orleans and all the other colorful stops they make.

    This very touching tale about rediscovering oneself and having a second chance has a predictable ending but its the journey that it takes that makes it the real delight that it is. With cameos by a barely unrecognisable Scarlett Johansson as a smouldering sexy Maitre’d, Dustin Hoffman as the grumpy restaurant owner, Oliver Platt as the Critic, Bobby Cannavale as an hilarious insecure Sous Chef, Amy Sedaris as a push PR, and an hilarious scene-stealing turn by Robert Downey Jnr as Marvin the ex husband. Inez, Carl’s ex wife was played by Sofía Vergara in a quieter version of her ‘Modern Family’ role that she plays for every part she is in, and John Leguizamo was Martin the other chef. However Mr. Downey Jr wasn’t the only performance that totally charmed the audience, as 11 year old ‘veteran’ actor Emjay Anthony was completely enchanting as young Percy.

    Mr Favreau has lovingly portrayed an authentic view of Miami Beach, but even more important has treated all the cooking scenes with such sheer passion and in great detail that you will literally dash out from the cinema drooling and ready to eat something delicious. It’s a wee gem of a movie.

    Chef is in Theatres from the 9th May 2014 in UK and USA

  • FILM REVIEW | Tom At The Farm

    ★★★★ | Tom At The Farm

    Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan may be sick of being constantly described as a wunderkind, but when you are just 24 years old like he is and have already made four head-turning mind-blowing Award winning movies, then the description is more than apt. Not content with writing and directing each of them he usually loves to edit, design the costumes, create the music, and now in his latest one, a taut psychological thriller, he stars in it too.

    Tom is grieving the death of his boyfriend Guy (known to his family as Guillaume) and he travels to a rather bleak part of Northern Quebec to attend the funeral and share his loss with the family he has never even met. He quickly discovers from a very scary encounter with Francis, Guilliame’s older brother, that not only was he ‘not out’ to his mother, but that Francis had actually created an imaginary girlfriend so that she would never suspect. In the first of many threats, Francis menacingly insists that Tom stays and keeps quiet about being gay and also adds some credence to the existence of Guillaume’s ‘girlfriend’ before he then goes from the family farm for good, never to return.

    To avoid doing just this, immediately after the funeral Tom tries to leave to go back to the city but in his panic he forgets his luggage and turns the car around to head back to the Farm to retrieve it. In doing so he confronts Francis and so refuses to go along with the subterfuge, which results in first of the beatings he will get at the hands of this psychotic bully. It also soon becomes obvious that despite all the violence both men are attracted to each other…Tom to Francis despite all the vicious physical abuse… and Francis to Tom even though he is bitterly angry about his own repressed homosexuality.

    Tom settles into some sort of routine and looks almost set to stay at the Farm and when he actually arranges for the fake girlfriend to come visit to appease the mother, he refuses to leave even when it is obvious to her and Tom that he is in real danger if he stays there a moment longer with the mad sociopath brother. He claims that it’s because that Francis could not manage the Farm on the own, but it’s clear that he actually is drawn to Francis’s deranged behaviour.

    It is a superb fist-clenching piece with an atmosphere of real fear that never ever lets up. I am not sure what was worse, knowing what Francis was actually capable of (and there is much more that I haven’t even touched on) or the realisation of what a pliable and willing Tom would accept. In amongst all of this, there is one most glorious scene where the two men tango together in the barn where the intimacy will only give way to violence again. The high pitch tension never ever gives a clue as to how it will develop or end up.

    Mr. Dolan sporting tousled dirty blond hair turns in a convincingly effective performance as Tom, and it is matched by veteran Canadian actress Lise Roy playing the mother with such a defiant tone, and also Pierre Yves- Cardinal as a very intimidating latently gay Francis.

    I am unashamedly a big fan of Mr. Dolan’s work and have never subscribed to the notion sometimes proffered that he is always about style over substance… the reason I am passionate about the work is the fact that he combines both so very well. However with this movie you can sense a more mature quality, and I believe that Mr. Dolan really can quite rightly claim the crown of being an out queer Hitchcock.

    P.S. The only fact I have given this a less than perfect score is there were two strands of the plot that puzzled me. I couldn’t believe that the mother could have been so completely unaware of what was going on in either of her son’s life. And secondly would an urbane copy editor at a city ad agency really take to farming so eagerly as Tom did?

    It did however won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and is a totally unmissable movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | In The Name Of

    Father Adam is the pastor of a minute parish in the hinterlands of Poland where he has opened a centre for ‘difficult’ teenage ex-reformatory boys. In this bleak countryside he, and his lay helper Michel, have fashioned their small group of unruly charges into almost responsible young men.

    They play football, go swimming and work together but despite his firm control over them, there is always this underlying feeling that tempers could rail up over the slightest excuse at any time, and so there is always a veiled threat of potential violence.

    There is little to do in this remote hamlet and Michel’s bored and neglected wife puts the moves of a rather shaken Adam. When he rejects her advances, he does so by explaining it is because he is ‘already taken’, which we assume refers to his Catholic vow of celibacy, and it isn’t until the second part of the story we realise its because he is not attracted to woman at all.

    Adam is always focused on being in control, but when he rushes to the defence of Lukasz a local boy who does odd jobs at the Center on two different occasions, it starts becoming apparent that despite his intentions he has deeper feelings for him. Lukasz is a good-natured young man whose usual silence at first seems to indicate sullenness, but in fact it is he who shows the lonely Priest warmth and openness that green lights what is to follow.

    Before this can happen, Adam tries desperately to repress his feelings by resorting to his old habit of getting rip-roaring drunk on his own, and he turns up the some rock music very loud and dances around the kitchen clutching a picture of the Pope as a partner. If it wasn’t for the fact that he is such a deeply unhappy man, it would be a very funny scene indeed.

    Michel suspects something is amiss and tells the Bishop who lets slip that he had already had to forcibly transfer Adam from his last position. Despite the remarkable success that Adam has made of the Center, his position is considered untenable now, and this will mark the end for him. Or will it?

    This emotional charged drama has an overwhelming sense of such utter sadness for most of the story. The whole piece gels so well because Father Adam (superbly played by Andrzej Chyra) is an engaging, seriously devout priest, generous to a fault to his parishioners, but one who struggles with his human foibles. When he tries to share his secrets with another person… his sister… she wants to be in denial of the reality just like Michel and The Bishop, and it simply reinforces Adam’s feeling of abandonment and hopelessness.

    Lukasz, like the other boys, is a young adult so what we are dealing with here is not paedophilia but a consenting relationship between two man, albeit that one is considerably older. It is his Lukasz’s final resolve that makes him appear mature enough to be a match for the Priest.

    The movie quite rightly won the prestigous Teddy Award at Berlinale (the highest award for a LGBT film) for writer/director Malgoska Szumowska who is back in form after that rather odd ‘Elles’. A nod to her cinematographer Michal Englert (also co-screenwriter) for the stunning haunting feel he gave to the bleak outside landscapes in particular, and another to young Mateusz Kosciukiewicz who looked more than tad like Jesus and who played Lukasz.

    What sets this remarkable and unpredictable movie apart from others that have dealt with repressed Catholic priests dealing with their homosexuality is Szumowska’s very real understanding of Adam’s personal struggle and the very straightforward way she tells his tale. The fact that its set in the Polish Catholic Church makes it that much braver, and also controversial.

  • FILM REVIEW | Locke

    ★★★★★ | Locke

    Ivan Locke is on the eve of the biggest challenge of his career.

    Tomorrow sees the biggest concrete pour ever that will serve as the foundation for Europe’s largest building to date. As the foreman of the site he is considered not only the go-to expert but also a safe pair of hands to ensure that this mammoth operation will be done without a single hitch. However, that night he receives a phone call that will not only put the project in jeopardy, but will serve to unravel his job, family and his entire life.

    Several months earlier whilst on another ‘concrete pour’ away from home, Locke had a one-night stand with an older rather lonely woman. It was a brief fleeting moment that he had totally forgotten about until tonight when the woman, very scared and panicking, had suddenly phoned him out of the blue to tell his she was about to give birth to his baby at any moment. So after finishing work that day he jumps into his BMW and hot-foot it down the motorway from Birmingham to the hospital in London where the woman is having a difficult labour.

    In the course of the 3-hour drive Locke tries to manage the job and also his wife remotely by a series of very fraught phone conversations. Neither his flabbergasted boss nor his unsuspecting wife can accept Locke’s reasoning for abandoning them both on a whim like this and the phone calls get menacing and bitter as they threaten to destroy Locke if he persists with what they can only see as a foolhardy plan.

    Meanwhile in between all this rancor Locke is also balancing calls to his deputy Foreman who Locke has convinced can manage the task on his own, even though at this hour the man is already the worse the wear for drink. He also manages to deal with the police and council officials to ensure that the construction site has all the right permits for the task. On top of which Bethan, the now very distraught mother to be, is also bombarding Locke with hysterical demands as her deteriorating condition means that the hospital need to make decisions to try to save the baby.

    Throughout this all Locke is cool and collected and deals all the anger thrown at him is a quiet reasoned manner. Even though his boss fires him, Locke continues to brief his (ex) deputy as he is still convinced that he can supervise the job at a distance. He does however fail to calm his hysterical wife and she refuses to now take his calls and Locke is left communicating to her through his two teenage sons who are not interested in any family drama and much keener in relaying the play-by-play detail of the football match they had been hoping to watch with him on TV that night.

    The sons are obviously the real joy in Locke’s life but in the gaps between the phone calls we learn the real reason why his is insisting on undertaking this journey tonight and its to do with the fact his own father had deserted him at an early age, and so Locke will do anything to avoid repeating this, even though it may end up at a very steep cost. He has no intention at all of starting any sort of relationship with Bethan, but he wants to take responsibility for his new child regardless. Whatever his irate boss and his wife who has been blindsided by this one act of betrayal think of him, Locke is in fact a decent man who simply wants to do the best.

    Written and directed by Steven Knight, who picked up an Oscar Nomination for his screenplay for Stephen Frears ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ and is also known for writing ‘Eastern Promises’ for David Cronenberg. Knight wrote this piece for Tom Hardy and when he persuaded the actor to take the part, he was given just 2 weeks by the Actor’s agent to shoot the whole thing. It is a tour-de-force career defining performance by Hardy who is on screen in that car for the entire performance. He is nothing short of electrifying and I can totally appreciate why Knight insisted that the role was his alone.

    There is whole plethora of wonderful English talent who are the disembodied voices at the end of the phone that included Olivia Colman, Ben Daniels, Danny Webb, Andrew Scott and particularly Ruth Wilson as Locke’s distraught wife.

    Hands up too for Haris Zambarloukos the D.P. and Justine Wright the editor for helping make an entire movie short in car so compelling.

    This small indie movie was shown in the Spotlight Section at Sundance this year and is just about to have a limited theatrical release in the UK. I do so hope it becomes more widely available as the audience it so well deserves should see it.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Diana

    ★★  | Diana

    Officially separated from her husband, Diana Princess of Wales is out to hook herself another new man, and the one she has chosen is Hasnet Khan a handsome heart surgeon who she looks up at with her big dewy eyes and blurts out ‘So hearts can’t really be broken then?’

    Full credit to actress Naomi Watts who, complete with prosthetic nose, is playing the worlds most famous woman, that she musters as much dignity as she can delivering such clichéd tosh as this straight out of a schoolgirls ‘True Romance’ story. This is from the new biopic that specifically deals with the two years of the doomed affair Diana and Khan had that ended just a year before her untimely death.

    The picture painted here is of a lonely and somewhat desperate woman trapped by the restraints of her fame and constantly waging war with her in-laws and the whole Buckingham Palace machinery. She is portrayed as an innocent here, and flirts to capture Khan as if he is the only man she has ever loved. (There is not even a hint to her long affair with James Hewitt etc). Khan is clearly smitten too and soon succumbs to her charms and her wily ways but by dating Diana he starts something he knows he cannot maintain as his devout Muslim family in Pakistan will eventually pressure him to take a traditional wife.

    Their two years together are an emotional roller coaster and the movie veers dramatically from showing Diana as this love struck immature girl one moment to the world crusader that she became. In the scenes of the latter, Director Oliver Hirschbiegel, just couldn’t resist in going just a tad too far in making her seem just a little too holy and self-righteous.

    Of course the trouble tackling any story on such a major icon like this is that everybody has a fiercely held view on their own. Hence some of the excessive vitriol that was heaped on the movie by the UK press. This may not be a good movie but it is hardly the train wreck that so many Brits (except this one) think it is.

    Based on book by journalist Kate Snell it is like, so much that was written about Diana, mainly unsubstantiated and comprised of suppositions and a lot of clever guesswork. What it seriously lacked was not necessarily more facts (god forbid) but a half decent script to replace the embarrassing drivel that newbie writer Stephen Jeffreys had penned. If only Peter Morgan (The Queen) had taken the job on!

    The fact however that it was still streaks ahead of a Lifetime for TV biopic was thanks to Miss Watts. She may have been 10 years older than Diana was when she died, and an Australian, and not really looking a lot like her, but she still did a great job.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | Yves Saint Laurent

    ★★★★ | Yves Saint Laurent

    Yves St Laurent was regarded as the most consistently celebrated and influential designer for twenty-five years. He is credited with both spurring Haute Couture’s rise from its 1960’s ashes and with finally rendering Ready-to-Wear reputable. He was unquestionably a genius and it’s no exaggeration at all to state that some of his ‘creations’ were stunning masterpieces.

    He was however, a very troubled and tormented soul. An aspect that this new biopic on M. St Laurent makes a point of labouring on. As a piece of fiction the story of how this timid gentle soul who, at the tender age of 21 took over from his mentor Christian Dior to head up the Couture House is totally compelling. The year is 1957 and his first Collection as Head Designer at Dior catapulted him to international stardom. A year later he met Pierre Bergé, an industrialist who became his lover, and later his business partner after Dior had sacked St Laurent. He and Bergé set up the House of Yves St Laurent together.

    The movie focuses on how St Laurent, who had always been a manic depressive, became heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs just to cope with his daily pressures. As he sought solace (and sex) in the arms of other young men, his exploits landed him in police stations and on newspaper front pages, and he was always being rescued by Bergé who saved the day yet again. The couple spilt up romantically in 1976, a fact that is not mentioned in the movie, but remained business partners until St Laurent’s death from brain cancer in 2008.

    It’s a real treat to see the scenes of St Laurent at work in his Salon watching him create unforgettable pieces that were greatly influenced by his love of non-European culture. Also some of the scenes of almost debauchery when he is out partying with close friends like Karl Lagerfeld and Loulou de la Falaise when he looks like he is actually enjoying himself for a change. However fact and fiction start to really cross wires, and whilst we are expected to believed that this was a man who refused to take responsibility for anything, it’s nigh on impossible to believe that Bergé was such a saintly figure who never ever even dreamed about sleeping around or sniffing a line of coke or anything remotely bad.

    The movie based on Laurence Benaim’s biography was made with with Bergé’s ‘approval’ who has always had a reputation as a control freak and in the same way he micro-managed YSL, he has obviously totally manipulated the way that both he and St Laurent are portrayed in this movie. It’s such a pity as I believe that the real truth of this remarkable and tempestuous relationship is a great story still waiting to be told.

    Maybe it will be in Bertrand Bonello’s new movie ‘Saint Laurent’ currently being made now without Berge’s approval.

    Fact or fiction, there were still two incredible performances from the lead actors Guillaume Gallienne as Bergé, and Pierre Niney who was completely pitch perfect as the vulnerable St. Laurent.

    There was one remarkable touching scene when St Laurent arrives home, the worse for wear after an all night bender and has collapsed in the bathroom. As Bergé helps him, St Laurent tearfully confesses that he loves his new boyfriend Jacques, but that Berge will always be the love of his life. And you really want to believe that this indeed really was the case.

    Available to buy / view on: Amazon | Amazon Prime | iTunes